The Royal We (5 page)

“Well, I was feeling colorful,” Clive hedged. “And it worked, didn’t it? Penelope is busted. Besides, everyone already thinks you’re afraid of polo.”

“I’m allergic to horses!” Nick yelped. “If this keeps up, I’m going to go on TV and sit on one and then get wheezy and faint and fall off and break my neck and then who will be sorry?”

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re not overreacting,” Clive said mildly. “Speaking of, I haven’t told Gaz about this one yet. I’m not sure how he’ll take it.”

“Why on earth would Gaz care?” Cilla asked, poking through my mail nosily. “It doesn’t involve free beer or potted meat products.”

“He’s shagging Penelope Six-Names,” Clive informed her.

“What?” Cilla was startled. “He never. That useless tart? Since when?”

“The other night at The Bird,” Clive replied. “But now he’ll have to scrap her, I guess, as she’s clearly untrustworthy. Why are you so bothered?”

“
I’m
not bothered in the slightest,” Cilla said, nose in the air. “I just had hoped for his sake that he had better taste in girls than he does in shirts. Apparently not.”

She turned to me, and I detected a faint blush in her cheeks. “We’re going to The Head of the River. Kitchen is open late tonight and I’m dying for fish and chips. Are you in?” she asked.

“That sounds great,” I said, but just then I saw Nick’s finger twitch. He was jonesing, and besides, I had something that I wanted to ask him. “Um, but I can’t. I’m having some trouble with one of the Hans Holbeins, and Nick agreed to help me out.”

Cilla let out a braying laugh. “Art, Nick? Can you even draw stick people?”

“It’s art
history
,” he said. “These people painted my entire bloodline. I’m very useful.”

Clive looked disappointed. And, admittedly, rather cute in his England rugby shirt, his glasses slightly crooked, his hair still a Gluggy mess.

“Are you sure?” he asked me. “It’s pub trivia night. Hugh von Huber is hosting, which means it’ll all be questions about historical Germans who were actually very kind.”

“Thanks,” I said, getting up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Another night, I promise. If I screw up the actual university part of Oxford, I’m on the next plane.”

“Suit yourselves,” Cilla said, closing the door, but not before an appraising look at us.

Nick and I were alone again. There was a moment of silence.

“I don’t want you to think—” he began.

“Which story did you plant with me?” I said at the same time.

“See, the thing is,” Nick said, fidgeting, “there are always people with big mouths, or bad intentions, or who just can’t say no in the face of a fat pile of cash. Father told the press to back off and let me be, but sometimes they try to get crafty with the people on the ground here.”

“And you all tell different lies to see which ones end up in the paper,” I reasoned. “Like a trap.”

“It’s harmless,” Nick said. “It’s not like we’re having her executed. Just maybe thrown in the Tower for a week.”

“So what lie did you feed me by the bridge the other day?” I crossed my arms, hurt and put off. “Or was the entire conversation a test?”

“I was hardly camped out there waiting for you to come trotting by at dawn,” he said, sounding defensive. Then he picked uneasily at my quilt. “When I was a child, you couldn’t pick up a paper without reading something salacious about my parents,” he said quietly. “A miscarriage my mother had, some terrible fight, a story about her up all night crying because she’d hugged an old childhood friend and everyone decided he was actually my father. True stories that only someone inside our house would know. My mum…” His voice faltered. “I’ve learnt to be careful. I don’t know how else to do it.”

I studied him for a second.

“I guess I can see your point,” I said. “If every stupid thing I said ran the risk of being in
The New York Times
, I’d have duct-taped my mouth by now and become a recluse.”

An expression of sadness crossed his face, and realizing what I’d just said, I wished I could’ve done exactly that.

“Dammit,” I cursed. “I’m sorry, I forgot that your mom doesn’t—”

“Never mind,” Nick said. “I know you meant well. She’s…just shy.”

I reached over to squeeze his hand, but caught myself and ended up patting his knee like an affectionate old aunt. “I just mean, I don’t have a right to be mad. I obviously don’t know what I’m talking about.”

He met my eyes. “If it helps, it was different with you. Everything I told you that morning was true.”

Then he opened my laptop. “And I will buy you
three
plates of fish and chips in exchange for letting me experience this show, and perhaps one of those Twinkies, which look like an equally bad idea,” he said, hitting play. “Let’s get to work.”

N
ight Nick and Night Bex were equal parts compatible and self-destructive. One
Devour
episode led to another, and one shipment of Twinkies became three (Nick liked to stick his fingers in them and eat them like corn dogs, and also prod me in the face). Lacey sent us her DVDs of old seasons so Nick and I could binge on the whole saga from the beginning while we waited for the newest hours, and she was delighted to have what she viewed as a profound impact on Nick’s life.

The more fun I had feeding Nick’s obsession, though, the more often Clive found himself displaced from my bed. While I was never in love with Clive—the closest we got to being official was agreeing that,
officially
, there were no strings attached—we definitely were involved. There’s no denying it, no revising it, no editing my behavior into something more innocent. Nick’s great-grandmother, Marta, the Queen Mum, once asked me if I was nervous about—and I quote—
losing my maidenhead
on our wedding night. I snickered before I could catch myself, and she playfully wiggled the scotch in her hand and said, “Too right. A woman can’t bloody well pick her signature drink without sampling the whole bar.”

Not looking to fall in love didn’t mean I didn’t want to sample the cocktails, so to speak, but at Oxford, the bar wasn’t as open as I’d have liked. Half the men we met wanted an in with the Crown, were prone to spouting off on the plight of the landed estates, or just wanted to ask endless conspiracy theory questions, like whether the Queen ever rigged the horse races (no) or requested certain
Coronation Street
storylines (she says no, but I don’t believe it). Any promising guys without Nick-related agendas lost interest in me once they got wind of who my friends were, and decided I wasn’t worth the fuss. It turned out to be less agita just to walk down the hall, and Clive made himself a habit that was hard to break. He was attentive and witty, and with a bit of coaching, his kissing vastly improved (he’d always been skilled at the rest of it). I thought it was sweet that he’d put his hand on the small of my back to steer me through crowds, and that he bought a hypoallergenic pillow in case I wanted to sleep in his room. But it was hard to untangle that warmth and comfort and familiarity—that pure
like
—from the other truth of the circumstance: I enjoyed Clive’s company, but I also enjoyed the company Clive kept. Cutting the umbilical cord that yoked me to Lacey for twenty years was so much easier thanks to everyone on my floor
not
named Bea, and over time, their friendship became my cocoon. Especially because the instant the grapevine gleaned that I had gotten tight with Nick, polite nods and interest in the American newcomer gave way to under-the-breath jokes about my nationality, or snickers about the origin of my family’s money. Assumptions about my motivations had been made, and I was being assessed and found wanting.

“All hail the Sofa Queen,” one guy said at a pub.

“Cheers, BHS!” said another, at breakfast, referencing a British furniture store.

“Are you getting the next round, Bex?” Lady Bollocks said one night in the JCR. “Don’t forget, here at Oxford we keep the drinks all the way up at the bar rather than under our bums.”

Most of the teasing was casual, except possibly Bea’s—although even that I could handle; I wasn’t ashamed of my dad actually working for his wealth. But my friends never succumbed to nor stood for those jokes, nor made any of their own, and my gratitude for that loyalty colored and heightened my appreciation of everything. Which therefore kept me from acknowledging the raging case of Clivus interruptus that was developing every time Nick and I settled in for a
Devour
marathon, and I wasn’t doing anything to stop it.

What nobody knew, and neither he nor I said aloud, was that my room had become a safe haven for Nick. Although he trusted his friends with his life, he wasn’t as liberal with his self, yet something about those uncinematic, quotidian hangouts in my room relaxed his grip on the real Nick. He grew comfortable shuffling in wearing the old Snoopy pajama pants that had been Freddie’s Christmas gag gift; bringing in coffee and crosswords when it was too cold to take them outside; tasting and rating the relative wretchedness of the microwaved meals we bought at the market. Certain columnists claim Nick liked me in spite of my being an American, but—not to discount my sweatshirts and ripped jeans, nor the alluring way I stopped bothering to brush my hair when he came by—I think it was
because
of it. Imagine knowing everyone in your life would one day have to stop calling you by your name and honor you as their sovereign. It’s impossible for that not to erect walls, even subconsciously. But with me that wasn’t an issue, and I enjoyed letting Nick be, for perhaps the first time in his life, unremarkable.

Meanwhile,
Devour
—never exactly a critical favorite—was pulling out all the stops to get ratings in its sixth season, like trapping the shape-shifter in the body of a ninety-three-year-old nun, and delivering a cliffhanger that involved an actual cliff and, unexpectedly, an actual hanger. Night Nick and Night Bex had been fiending, so when a disc arrived in late October with a Post-it in Lacey’s perfect script reading simply,
Minotaur alert
, I stuck it under Nick’s door and returned to my room to wait him out.

Nick burst in two hours later. “Sorry, I was out with India. We need a bat signal so I can come home as soon as these get here.”

He stopped short when he realized I was on the phone.

“Everything’s fine, Dad, that’s just my horribly impatient hallmate Nick,” I said into the receiver.

“He’s pretty loud,” Dad said.

“He was raised in a barn.”

Dad chortled. “I’m going to tell the Queen you said that.”

“I’m going to tell Gran you said that,” Nick was whispering at the same time.

“Put him on the phone, honey,” Dad said. “Prince or no prince, if this Nick fellow is going to run around your dorm room I should at least get the chance to scare him a little.”

“Dad, we’re just friends. And he probably isn’t allowed to talk to you.”

“Oh, I most certainly am,” Nick said, snatching the receiver from me. “Hello, sir,” he said in an absurdly proper-sounding voice. “This is Nicholas Wales speaking.”

This is one of my favorite memories. The
put your man-friend on the phone
gambit was the greatest gift my dad gave Nick, because it said from the get-go that he didn’t view him any differently than any other guy who hung out in my bedroom.

“What studies, sir?” Nick said into the phone. “Are you quite sure she’s doing any?”

I kicked at his leg.

“Oh, indeed, loads of trouble,” he said. “I expect she’ll get kicked out of the country fairly soon. Sharing humiliating stories might help—you know, really good blackmail material, to keep her on the straight and narrow.”

I lunged at the phone but Nick stiff-armed me away from him.

“That is shocking, sir,” he said.

“You are dead to me,” I called out in the general direction of the phone.

“Oh, that one’s even better. That’ll do nicely,” Nick said. “Thank you, sir. Yes, my royal upbringing should be a wonderful influence. Oh, and if you’ve got any in Liverpool red, my mate Gaz would love a Coucherator.”

“Those things would never fit up these stairs,” I hissed loudly.

“Maybe we can fit it in through a window,” Nick said. “Right, sir, we’ll measure it. Have a wonderful night. Go Cubs.”

“Sycophant,” I said, reclaiming the phone. “We’re already out of the playoffs.”

I let my dad know rather colorfully what I thought of that whole scene, and then hung up. Nick was studying me, a mischievous expression on his face.

“You threw your prom date into a rubbish bin?”

“He was being too handsy!” I protested. “He kept trying to hump my leg on the dance floor, and then told me he had a pearl necklace for me in the limo. So I
may
have spiked his punch an obscene amount, and the Dumpster was right outside—”

Nick held up his hand. “Oh, I heard,” he said. “Although not the necklace thing; that is disgusting. But there is also the matter of a pet hamster named…let me see if I get this right…Prince Nicky? Whom you tried to flush down the toilet?”

“Lacey named him!” I said. “And he fell in! He was fine! He was aquatic!”

“I ought to call PPO Furrow and have you reevaluated,” Nick said.

I held up the latest
Devour
episode. “No sudden moves,
Nicky
. I can end this for you right here, right now.”

Nick took his usual spot on the fluffy rug and raised a hand. “Twinkies, please,” he said airily. “Be a good subject and pass them along. It’s what your father would want.”

I threw the pack at his head, which he caught deftly before it smacked him in the nose.

“Treason,” he said. “I quite like your dad. I can’t wait to meet him.”

I grabbed the Cracker Jack and grunted.

When the credits ran—Spencer Silverstone threw supernatural acid at her romantic rival, a mortal named Carrie, and it gave her a mind-controlling scar with a murderous agenda—we plunged back into the end of season two (known to me and Lacey as The Ill-Fated Talking-Candle Experiment), which led to a lively debate about the laws of shape-shifting. Nick finally groaned and rolled over straight into a half-eaten microwave curry from the local supermarket.

“I am numb,” he said, picking congealed lumps of chicken off his arm. “Oh God, is it getting light outside?”

He ran to my window. “It has
gotten
light outside,” he amended, squinting at my travel clock. “It’s seven fifteen, Rebecca Porter.”

I yawned forcefully. “Night Bex and Night Nick strike again.”

“Rebecca,” Nick said in a whisper-bellow. “This is very bad.”

“Why?” I peered up at him, crunching my pillow under my cheek.

Nick began pacing, picking things up and then immediately putting them down again.

“Well, for starters, I have spent another full night in your room and Clive is not going to like that,” he said.

“Clive underst—”

“And beyond that,” Nick said, not hearing me, “I have an event today. Father and I are opening an exhibit of family ancestral writings at the Ashmolean.”

I sat up. “That’s today?”

“Yes, Rebecca, that is today.”

“Why do you keep calling me Rebecca?”

Nick pulled every hair on his head straight into the air. “Because, Rebecca,” he said, “I have gone insane. My father is due in three hours. Why did we stay up so late? I am an
idiot
.”

He was doomed; I was sure of it. His eyes were bloodshot and his face looked gray. But I decided this was one time honesty was not what Nick needed.

“Everything is going to work out,” I said instead. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to leave my room and you’re going to take a cold shower.”

“This already sounds like the worst plan.”

“It’ll wake you up, dumbass.”

Nick didn’t even flinch at that, which I now know is because Freddie has called him worse at least once a day their entire lives.

“Then,” I continued, “chug a pot of coffee and, like, a gallon of water. The caffeine will wake you up and the water will keep you hydrated. And get some greasy food. But
no pastries
, Nick. Pure carbs will make you crash.”

“How do you know all this?” Nick asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Nicholas,” I said. “You may have named her, but Night Bex has existed since long before I met you. One day, I’ll tell you about the time I only slept two hours before my aunt Kitty’s wedding, where I had to give an insanely long reading in German, which I don’t speak.”

“How much more could there be to tell?” he said.

“Focus,” I commanded him. “You are not going to blow this. I promise.”

Nick grabbed me in a tight hug. Improbably, he smelled delicious, an indescribable scent that I will always only be able to define as
him
. And maybe a bit of tikka masala.

“I’d be lost without you,” he said. And as he scampered off to his room, I turned around and passed out on my bed.

Everything about Prince Richard is narrow, from his body to the oval of his head to the line of his longish nose. But his bearing, the way he carries his position with just enough pomposity that you feel it but not enough that you wholly dislike him for it, gives him an aura of being good-looking even though the sum of the parts is fairly plain. I’d long been familiar with his face, because my parents went to London in the eighties and brought back a commemorative Royal Wedding wastebasket that’s in their downstairs bathroom (“He’s going to be king. He
should
live in the throne room,” Dad had said). But seeing someone in magazines—or tossing used Kleenex into him—is different than watching him move and speak in person, especially after the passage of more years than my parents or Richard might care to admit.

That night, Richard and Nick were hosting a grand reopening of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum after a large renovation. The new modern lobby and balconies were packed with donors, rich alleged art lovers, local looky-loos who’d won a ticket lottery, and us, Nick’s motley support crew—stuck upstairs against a glass railing that put us nose-to-nethers with a giant naked statue of Apollo from the fifth century BC. This delighted Gaz, who loudly wondered if he could distinguish one huge dick from the other.

“It gives me great pleasure to have my son with me today, in our first joint venture since he gave up polo,” Richard was saying into a microphone. His speaking voice is not the rich baritone I always expect; it’s higher, thinner, a touch raspy. The Queen Mum once told me she thinks his tantrums as a young boy made it that way forever. I love her.

Nick—just behind his father, who stood at a podium on one of the angular atrium staircase’s landings—remained serene and impassive, despite the hot-button polo issue. I’d become fluent enough in Nick’s facial expressions to recognize this veneer as Advanced Pleasantness. It meant he was annoyed.

“We’re delighted to christen the new Ashmolean with never-before-seen private writings of our Lyons ancestors,” Richard continued. “The Princess of Wales wishes she could have been here. She’d have been immensely proud to see Nicholas contributing to Oxford’s history and culture. Especially as she once practically had to drag him through the Louvre.”